The three great battles of Crecy, Poictiers, and Azincour bear a singular resemblance to each other in their most considerable circumstances. In all of them there appears the same temerity in the English princes, who, without any object of moment, merely for the sake of plunder, had ventured so far into the enemy’s country as to leave themselves no retreat; and unless saved by the utmost imprudence in the French commanders, were, from their very situation, exposed to inevitable destruction. But allowance being made for this temerity, which, according to the irregular plans of war followed in those ages, seems to have been, in some measure, unavoidable there appears, in the day of action, the same presence of mind, dexterity, courage, firmness, and precaution on the part of the English; the same precipitation, confusion, and vain confidence on the part of the French: and the events were such as might have been expected from such opposite conduct. The immediate consequences too of these three great victories were similar: instead of pushing the French with vigor, and taking advantage of their consternation, the English princes, after their victory, seem rather to have relaxed their efforts, and to have allowed the enemy leisure to recover from his losses. Henry interrupted not his march a moment after the battle of Azincour; he carried his prisoners to Calais, thence to England; he even concluded a truce with the enemy; and it was not till after an interval of two years that any body of English troops appeared in France.
The poverty of all the European princes, and the small resources of their kingdoms, were the cause of these continual interruptions in their hostilities; and though the maxims of war were in general destructive, their military operations were mere incursions, which, without any settled plan, they carried on against each other. The lustre, however, attending the victory of Azincour, procured some supplies from the English parliament; though still unequal to the expenses of a campaign. They granted Henry an entire fifteenth of movables; and they conferred on him for life the duties of tonnage and poundage, and the subsidies on the exportation of wool and leather. This concession is more considerable than that which had been granted to Richard II. by his last parliament and which was afterwards, on his deposition, made so great an article of charge against him.
But during this interruption of hostilities from England, France was exposed to all the furies of civil war, and the several parties became every day more enraged against each other. The duke of Burgundy, confident that the French ministers and generals were entirely discredited by the misfortune at Azincour, advanced with a great army to Paris, and attempted to reinstate himself in possession of the government, as well as of the person of the king. But his partisans in that city were overawed by the court, and kept in subjection: the duke despaired of success; and he retired with his forces, which he immediately disbanded in the Low Countries.[*]
1417.
He was soon after invited to make a new attempt, by some violent quarrels which broke out in the royal family. The queen, Isabella, daughter of the duke of Bavaria, who had been hitherto an inveterate enemy to the Burgundian faction, had received a great injury from the other party, which the implacable spirit of that princess was never able to forgive. The public necessities obliged the count of Armagnac, created constable of France in the place of D’Albret, to seize the great treasures which Isabella had amassed: and when she expressed her displeasure at this injury, he inspired into the weak mind of the king some jealousies concerning her conduct, and pushed him to seize, and put to the torture, and afterwards throw into the Seine, Boisbourdon, her favorite, whom he accused of a commerce of gallantry with that princess. The queen herself was sent to Tours, and confined under a guard;[**] and after suffering these multiplied insults, she no longer scrupled to enter into a correspondence with the duke of Burgundy. As her son, the dauphin Charles, a youth of sixteen, was entirely governed by the faction of Armagnac, she extended her animosity to him, and sought his destruction with the most unrelenting hatred. She had soon an opportunity of rendering her unnatural purpose effectual. The duke of Burgundy, in concert with her, entered France at the head of a great army: he made himself master of Amiens, Abbeville, Dourlens, Montreuil, and other towns in Picardy; Senlis, Rheims, Chalons, Troye, and Auxerre, declared themselves of his party.[***] He got possession of Beaumont, Pontoise, Vernon, Meulant, Montlheri, towns in the neighborhood of Paris; and carrying further his progress towards the west, he seized Etampes, Chartres, and other fortresses; and was at last able to deliver the queen, who fled to Troye, and openly declared against those ministers who, she said, detained her husband in captivity.[****]
* Le Laboureur, liv. xxxv. chap. 10.
** St. Remi, chap. 74. Monstrelet, chap. 167.
*** St. Remi, chap. 79.
**** St. Remi, chap. 81. Monstrelet, chap. 178, 179.
Meanwhile the partisans of Burgundy raised a commotion in Paris, which always inclined to that faction. Lile-Adam, one of the duke’s captains, was received into the city in the night-time, and headed the insurrection of the people, which in a moment became so impetuous that nothing could oppose it. The person of the king was seized: the dauphin made his escape with difficulty; great numbers of the faction of Armagnac were immediately butchered: the count himself, and many persons of note, were thrown into prison: murders were daily committed from private animosity, under pretence of faction: and the populace, not satiated with their fury, and deeming the course of public justice too dilatory, broke into the prisons, and put to death the count of Armagnac, and all the other nobility who were there confined.[*]
1418.
While France was in such furious combustion, and was so ill prepared to resist a foreign enemy, Henry, having collected some treasure and levied an army, landed in Normandy at the head of twenty-five thousand men; and met with no considerable opposition from any quarter. He made himself master of Falaise; Evreux and Caen submitted to him; Pont de l’Arche opened its gates; and Henry, having subdued all the lower Normandy, and having received a reënforcement of fifteen thousand men from England,[**] formed the siege of Rouen, which was defended by a garrison of four thousand men, seconded by the inhabitants, to the number of fifteen thousand.[***] The cardinal des Ursins here attempted to incline him towards peace, and to moderate his pretensions; but the king replied to him in such terms as showed that he was fully sensible of all his present advantages: “Do you not see,” said he, “that God has led me hither as by the hand? France has no sovereign: I have just pretensions to that kingdom: every thing is here in the utmost confusion: no one thinks of resisting me. Can I have a more sensible proof, that the Being who disposes of empires has determined to put the crown of France upon my head?”[****]
* St. Remi, chap. 85, 86. Monstrelet, chap. 118.
** Walsing. p. 100.
*** St. Remi, chap. 31
**** Juvenal des Ursins.